[scotsfamily]

Hi all, (great site, big thanks to owners)
were taking the first steps to moving to NZ, have looked at the EOI but am a bit unsure of the skills list and where i fall into it. I'm a retail systems engineer with my own small business, with an HND in Information Systems, 15 years exp.
Does anyone or has anyone used an agent? and would you recommend one?
Any help, support etc welcome, i'm wading through the threads to find the info i need but straight from the horses mouth does help.
Oh and if anyone knows of any nice areas (and not too dear on the realastate side) to bring up a young family, please advise. I should also add were looking to the Aukland side due to the jobs available.

David, Janice and sprogs 10 & 11 yrs

[Helsandfamily]

HI david and Janice,

Welcome to the forum.

Can't help on the area side of Auckland, but I hear there is a book called

Where to live in Auckland and that has been recommended.

The general consensus (Sp) on the immigration agency side of things is DON'T
everyone on here has been through the process (or going through the process) and we are all more than happy to help.

What we did however (before finding this forum) was contact the immigration group, and had a consultation with them. I can't remember how much this cost it was somewhere around the £150 I think and they had worked out the points and stuff like that for us before going. However all of the info that they gave us was available through the NZ website, so we could have worked it all out for ourselves.

We decided in the end NOT to use anyone and saved about £3000, just by completing everything ourselves.

Hope this helps

Any questions please just ask

Hels

[Belmont Babes]

Fully agree with Hels. We did do the initial consultation too at a cost of £120. Could of done ourselves but in the beginning didn't have a clue where to start. Did the remainder ourselves.

[scotsfamily]

Thanks very much both of you, the bit i cant work out is what is my HND worth and what, if any points do i get for experience. Doh!
I will keep going though.
I read about, on this forum, about someone who went on a visit, got a job offer, applyed for a work permit (2 years) got his family and kids in on the back of that, then applyed and got residency. Have you heard of many doing this.

[Belmont Babes]

Yes I have heard of people doing this. I am sure you will gain further points for work experience, my partner did. Have you tried to do the points indicator test? I did and then the Expression of Interest later (EOI). The points indicator gave 125 points and the EOI gave 130 points. You can start to complete the EOI online, it will give you a true points total and you don't need to forward it to NZIS until you are ready. Good luck

[scotsfamily]

Thanks for that tah much